Inventor to Infraworks

[Peter.deVries]

Hello,

Is there a way to have Inventor assemblies imported into InfraWorks including some properties?

This link seems to have it figured out, but I do not know how to export .iam to 'NCC Dynamic Object' and have them imported in InfraWorks.

Can someone tell me how to do this?

Thanks in advance,

Peter de Vries

Structural Engineer, using Inventor for more than 10 years for modelling civil structures - especially movable bridges.

[martin.jacko]

Hi,

I think you can try save Inventor assembly like .obj file and import in InfraWorks.

Martin

[Peter.deVries]

Hi Martin,

Thank you for your reply.

It is indeed possible to export the .iam to .obj and it works beautifully in InfraWorks. Be aware though that the units are not automatically converted.

Did you also manage to export the parameters from Inventor to InfraWorks? Because I have created a movable bridge in Inventor and I want it to be able to be opened and closed...

Furthermore, I found out that an Inventor assembly can be directly opened in 3dsmax (which I already knew), where the driven parameters can be automatically translated to perform an animation (this I didn't know!). The scene can then be exported as .dae-file, which can then be imported into InfraWork as a dynamic object. But without the parameters 😞

So I'm almost there, but not quite.

Thanks again for your reply and if you have more suggestions, please let me know 🙂

Kind regards,

Peter

[ara.ashikian · Accepted solution]

Hi Peter

In the upcoming InfraWorks 2018.1 release, we added support for parametric road decorations that leverage the same approach that we have been creating for bridges.  Also, in this 2018.1 release, we can use Inventor assemblies as parametric content, in addition to parts.  In the previous release of InfraWorks (2018.0 back in April), we also added a new, and streamlined approach for importing and managing Inventor based parametric bridge content via InfraWorks Style Palette.

In the attached 3 images, I created an Inventor assembly of a very basic bridge bascule. I imported it in the InfraWorks Parametric Models tab of the Styles Palette as a road decoration.  I was then able to add it to an existing road as shown in the first image.  On the right side of the image, you can see the Inventor assembly parameters that were exposed as "key" in Inventor and thus, available for editing in InfraWorks.  For instance, I changed the BasculeAngle parameter in the 2nd image and the model updated.  Note that since this Inventor based bascule is introduced in the model as a road decoration, I had to play with some of the hard coded road decoration parameters shown in the Geometry section, such as spacing and rotation, in order to align as desired.

Alternatively, instead of placing this bascule along a road that has an InfraWorks based parametric bridge (where, by the way, all the bridge components are based on Inventor sub models), I created a "dummy" road in image 3 and made it really short and narrow with the goal of leveraging road decorations to place any Inventor assembly or part and being able to move it around in InfraWorks as desired and having access to the models parameters.

By the way, there are many advantages in modeling bridges directly in InfraWorks. While we do not yet directly support more specialized bridge types such as movable, suspension, arch or cable stayed, these can be modeled using a combination of InfraWorks, Inventor and some java script code in InfraWorks.

One interesting aspect of the bridge modeling in InfraWorks is the fact that you can easily open up the bridge model in Revit for detailing with rebar and creating construction drawings etc.

Regards,

Ara

PM InfraWorks Bridges

[Peter.deVries]

Dear Ara,

Thank you for your reply!

I am happy to hear that release 2018.1 of InfraWorks supports parametric Inventor assemblies - although I wouldn't refer to bridges as Road decorations.

Your example of the bascule bridge is indeed rather simple in relation to the movable bridge I want to bring into InfraWorks - check the attached image 🙂

Nevertheless, I am happy to hear that Inventor gets more attention within Civil Engineering.

As for now, my issue has been solved - just need to wait for InfraWorks 2018.1, so that I can place more dynamic blocks like road barriers.

Thanks again!

Kind regards,

Peter